Doug Tallamy Lecture on Oct 21 - Restoring Nature's Relationships

"Doug Tallamy, award-winning author and ecologist, will give a free public lecture at the City of Rehoboth Beach on Monday, October 21st. The lecture will begin at 10 a.m., as part of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Trees (MACT) meeting. Tallamy, a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, has authored 95 research publications and has taught insect-related courses for 39 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His book Bring Nature Home:  How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens was published by Timber Press in 2007 and was awarded the 2008 Silver Medal by the Garden Writers’ Association. The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, was published in 2014. Tallamy’s new book Nature’s Best Hope will be published in 2020. Among his awards is the Garden Club of America Margaret Douglas Medal for Conservation and the Tom Dodd, Jr. Award of Excellence, the 2018 AHS B.Y. Morrison Communication Award and the 2019 Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award.

Tallamy will speak about how the specialized relationships between animals and plants are the norm in nature rather than the exception. Those specialized relationships provide our birds with insects and berries, disperse our bloodroot seeds, pollinate our goldenrod, and more. Plants that evolved in concert with local animals provide for their needs better than plants that evolved elsewhere. Tallamy will explain why this is so, why specialized food relationships determine the stability and complexity of the local food webs that support animal diversity, why our yards and gardens are essential parts of the ecosystems that sustain us, and how we can use our landscapes to connect the isolated habitat fragments around us. It is time to create landscapes that enhance local ecosystems rather than degrade them."

The lecture is free and open to the public, there is not a need for a reservation. The lecture is scheduled for Monday, October 21, at 10 a.m., at the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Trees meeting. The lecture will be held in the 2nd floor commissioners room at City Hall, 229 Rehoboth Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Thank you and best wishes to enjoy the lecture.

Kind regards,

Krys Johnson
Communications Department
City of Rehoboth Beach

Above information provided by OLLI Geoengineering class member Denise.

Geoengineering to Combat Climate Change - Class Schedule

Oct 9 - Overview of Geoengineering Approaches

Oct 16 - Solar Radiation Management, aka Solar Geoengineering, with emphasis on stratospheric aerosol injection.

Oct 23 - Greenhouse Gas Removal, aka Carbon Geoengineering, with emphasis on Nature

Oct 30 - Geoengineering Policy Issues

Nov 6 - Focus on Geoengineering topics of class' choice (select topics at end of Oct 23 class)

Classes will begin at 9 am in room 102 of the Fred Thomas Building, Lewes.

Artic Sea Ice for 2019 Tied 2nd Lowest Extent on Record

This link will take you to the NASA web site's very recent article about the extent of Arctic Sea Ice for 2019. The information is depressing, but not surprising.

Arctic sea ice is very effective at reflecting solar radiation back into space, and hence limiting global warming. The open ocean left behind, where the ice used to be, is very absorbent to solar radiation, and hence promotes global warming.

NASA is a great resource for current climate data...https://climate.nasa.gov/

What is Geoengineering?

This link will take you to the Oxford University web site about Geoengineering.

And this link will take you to the Harvard University web site about geoengineering.

Harvard also has a very informative Technology Factsheet about Solar Geoengineering.

The Limits of AI Being Human-like

The New York Times just published a very eye-opening article about where AI is and what it may or may NOT be capable of in reference to being conscious, caring, sensitive and other human qualities. As a sensitive human, I really relate to this article. We of course will discuss it, probably in class 5.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/opinion/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning.html

Books About AI

The following books have been used by Paul Collins and me to provide current information about Artificial Intelligence. Each book has a different focus, and I rate all at least 4 to 5 stars. All are available on Amazon....if you want to support an AI focused company.....and of course there you can find reviews of these books.

LIFE 3.0   Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence   by Max Tegmark

THE FOURTH AGE   Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity
   by Byron Reese

MACHINES THAT THINK   The Future of Artificial Intelligence   by Toby Walsh

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE   101 things you must know today about our future
   by Lasse Rouhiainen

Video Links from AI Class #2 on Robots

Each Line below is a link to the related video, or in the last case, a web site.

Robot Summary - the Top Ten AI Robots

The Dangers of AI Robots

5 Advanced Military Robots

Autonomous AI Weapons....Slaughterbots
(Video made by the Future of Life Institute to encourage all countries to ban lethal autonomous weapons.)

AI Class #1 Video links

Paul Collins and I will try to get all the video Links from our AI class posted on this blog. We will also post some of the presentation text, but not all of it. This post covers videos from Class #1.
Each line below is a link to the related video.

Microsoft simple explanation of AI

Max Tegmark's perspective on AI

Sam Harris TED talk on AI concerns

Deep Learning via Neural Networks
 Google’s AlphaGo that beat Lee Sedol

Saving New Orleans from Sea Level Rise

The latest plan appears to be diverting nutrients and sand coming down the Mississippi River off into wetlands being invaded by salty water and sea level rise. To do this as effectively as possible, they have created a basketball court sized model of the lower Mississippi River to better study the anticipated results of their options.  So check out Mississippi Delta.

Teens vs Trump Admin re Climate Change

The following link is to a very moving article in Mother Jones about  21 plaintiffs 22 and younger suing the US Government

“We the people are ready to leave,” sang a small choir of climate activists in downtown San Francisco, “’cause the White House makin’ it hard to breathe.” 

That was the rallying cry in support of the 21 plaintiffs, ages 22 and younger, who are suing the federal government for causing climate change damages and thereby violating their constitutional rights.

Concerns on sea-level rise, but some 'good news'?....video from Yale Climate Connections

"The video can serve as a valuable instructional tool for those wanting to better explain or understand global sea-level rise trends and prospects. There are some painful, and even dire, concerns expressed about the potential that Greenland ice sheets could be “entirely lost” if emissions continue at a business-as-usual pace; about the rate of sea-level rise increasing “faster and faster with time”; and about the planet’s ice sheets likely becoming “more active” over coming decades than they have been over recent decades.

But scientist Eric Rignot, PhD, of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose research about three years ago pointed to bleak long-term glacier melt prospects for the western Antarctica, says he holds out hope for some “pretty good news.” "